Johnny's First Day In Heaven
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Not much to summarize. Johnny's experiences of the afterlife.
1. Chapter 1

It was like waking up. It was his neighborhood, the lot, the fire just embers. Bright, a bright day, the sky a blue white. But it didn't hurt his eyes. In fact, nothing hurt.

Johnny marveled at that. Though only 16 years old he had lived in a lot of pain. Physical pain from the beatings which started around the time he was 12. He'd had broken bones that never healed right, concussions, black and blues. Once his father had punched his upper arms so hard that it caused the bones to bleed, and Johnny had stared in awe at the bruises. They were black. Black. He'd never seen anything like it.

And mentally he was in a lot of pain. Wanting love and affection from his parents but he was beaten or ignored. And the social class caste system he found himself in, classified as a no good greaser, hoodlum, trouble maker, jumped by socs, ignored and given up on by teachers. Looked at suspiciously by cops, by middle class housewives. And this view they had wasn't so far from his own. He felt like he was worthless and heading for a dead end future of poverty and drinking.

But that pain was gone. He could remember it but couldn't feel it.

"Hi, Johnny,"

Johnny spun around. The soft voice, so comforting, so familiar. So different from his mother's silence or her shrill way of yelling at him.

Ponyboy's mom.

"Mrs…uh, Mrs. Curtis," The sky was still that white blue and everything was bright, bright.

Mrs. Curtis. She had been so nice to him, one of the few adults who had been. She was pretty, her hair a golden blond, her eyes blue like Darry's.

Johnny felt happy to see her but also troubled. He hadn't seen her in awhile and there seemed to be some reason why.

And something wasn't right. This was his neighborhood and the lot and everthing seemed in place but things were missing. Where was everybody? No people, no cars, no shouts, no radios or T.V.'s blasting, no kids running around, no punks slouching down, smoking cigarettes and swearing. Where was everybody?

And he didn't feel the same, didn't feel nervous, didn't feel the ache from the last beating, didn't feel the low level of misery he had felt for so long. So long. And the only one here was Mrs. Curtis, and that wasn't right, either.

What the hell was going on?

"Come with me, Johnny," she said in her smooth silky voice, and she watched him attentively, as though wondering if he would go with her or not.

So he followed her, past the eerily quiet houses, the deserted cars. He began to feel that this wasn't his neighborhood despite how it looked. How it appeared. That this may be some sort of illusion, or dream. But if it was a dream he'd had no other like this. He'd never thought so clearly in a dream, never was so aware of himself in a dream.

Mrs. Curtis walked a few feet ahead of him, dressed in a plain blue dress he remembered her wearing before…before something. It was like something was a bit hidden from him, something he had known at one point but then forgot.


	2. Chapter 2

She stopped, and he stopped, too. They stood on the sidewalk in front of a house. His house.

It was typical of the houses on this street, no better or worse than Ponyboy's house. They were the cheap square houses constructed after WWII. But his house showed the neglect his alcoholic parents had toward it.

And then, standing there in the strange stillness, the world started up. A car roared by. Kids yelled off in the distance, a slight breeze rustled the tips of the long grass in the yard.

Suddenly Johnny knew. Mrs. Curtis died. In a car accident months ago, her and Mr.Curtis both.

So then what? Why? But he shook his head, unable to deal with that notion. But it came back, as he noticed no one noticed him. Little kids running by, too close to him not to have seen him. But they didn't.

He wanted to get away from that house. He'd always hated it, hated that his parents never cared about him. When Mr. And Mrs. Curtis were alive he'd been so jealous of Ponyboy. Because he saw that look of pride and love and affection that Ponyboy got from his parents, and he'd feel the absence of that in his life like a hole, a deep hole that pulled everything else into it.

"Let's go," Mrs.Curtis said, and started up the wooden stairs that led to the porch.

Johnny stayed where he was, on the sidewalk.

"Johnny, let's go," Mrs. Curtis said, her voice filled with patience, softness.

He shook his head and backed away. No.

"They can't hurt you now," she said.

Up the stairs, through the front door into the familiar gloom. It was sparsely furnished, an old ratty couch, an old chair. There was a T.V. but it didn't work. Just sat blank and useless in the corner.

His mother sat in the chair, staring straight ahead. Johnny stared back at her, knowing she couldn't see him.

He touched the sleeve of his jean jacket. It was solid enough. Ran a hand along a denim clad thigh, feeling the rough material beneath his hand.

His mother looked like him, or he looked like her. She was small and had black hair, big black eyes. She licked her lips, looked toward the window then away. Johnny noticed then that she had something in her hand. He got closer, and as he approached she didn't move at all.

She held an old picture of him when he was five or six. It was black and white and it was one of those pictures with the white border around it. In the picture he wasn't smiling, his mouth open a little. When he was that age his eyes looked even bigger, saucer eyes.

She'd look at the picture for a second, look out the window, then stare straight ahead. Once she looked directly at him and blinked, looked puzzled. Johnny froze, sure for that second that she had seen him.

She took a deep shuddery breath, put the picture of him as a little boy to her forehead, closed her eyes, and started to cry.


End file.
